SKT successfully develops next-generation virtualized base station, taking a step closer to 6G.

SKT announced on the 20th that it has successfully developed and tested a next-generation virtualized base station that improves the power consumption and processing capacity of the open LAN virtualized base station.

A virtualized base station is a base station that can be implemented by installing only the necessary software on a general server, regardless of the manufacturer, unlike existing base stations that required the same hardware and software manufacturer.

This is being discussed as a key element of the 'Open Radio Access Network', which is emerging as an important technology for 5G advancement and 6G standardization, but the major areas for improvement have been pointed out as being high power consumption and insufficient capacity compared to existing base stations.

SKT, together with Samsung Electronics, Ericsson, Nokia, and Intel, developed a ‘next-generation virtualized base station’ and ‘AI-based virtualized base station power consumption reduction technology.’ Through this, it was revealed that “power consumption and capacity, which are the main technical challenges of open LAN virtualization base stations, have been effectively improved.”

SKT conducted interoperability tests with Samsung Electronics and Ericsson on a next-generation virtualized base station equipped with an "accelerator-embedded CPU" that has an accelerator built into the CPU, and with Nokia on an "inline accelerator" that processes all physical layer operations instead of the CPU, and confirmed improvements in processing capacity and power consumption compared to existing virtualized base stations.

SKT also successfully tested AI-based virtualized base station power-saving technology with Intel. This technology efficiently controls the on/off operation of each CPU core in a virtualized base station server by predicting traffic patterns using AI. SKT stated, "Based on commercial network data, the test results showed a reduction of CPU power consumption by over 20% compared to existing virtualized base stations."

Ryu Tak-gi, head of SKT’s infrastructure technology division, said, “This is a meaningful research and development result that has improved both the power consumption and processing capacity that are important in open RAN virtualized base stations,” and added, “SKT sees virtualized base stations as a technology that will serve as the foundation for the evolution of 5G and the new 6G network, and we plan to continue research and development on it.”